Spring Training seems to long!
When your a bad team and it shows this early in spring training, it makes the spring seem like it is going to take forever. The regular season will probably be like that too. Things are looking pretty dire in Detroit but that wasn't unexpected. We knew this was going to be a long process.
Last week during our spring games we went 1-5 to bring our spring record to 3-9. Somehow the Washington Eagles who have a lot more talent on their team are 1-11 and we have beaten them twice so far this spring.
Week 2 Spring Training Results
Monday - New York Gothams vs Detroit 6-1 Loss
Tuesday - Detroit @ St. Louis 10-2 Loss
Wednesday - Pittsburgh vs Detroit 9-2 Loss
Thursday - Washington vs Detroit 8-6 Win
Friday - Detroit at Philadelphia 4-3 (10) Loss
Saturday - Detroit at Chicago 3-2 Loss
Certainly the 2nd half of the week away from New York, St. Louis and Pittsburgh looked a lot better as far as we won a game and lost one in extras and the other by just a run. The first 3 games of the week we were outscored by a 25-5 count.
Dynamo's Sign New Asst GM
Not that it really matters (other than I hate the message on my team page that I have a position open), the Dynamo's put some pennies together to give DD Martin an Asst GM. In a strange surprise the new Asst GM is one of Martin's former players in Cleveland who put him on waivers at the start of the 1927 Season.
Ben Hathaway never really lived up to some of the early promise he had flashed as a minor league guy. After he was drafted in 1921 he was rated the #26 overall prospect in the game. He ended up with a 295 batting average and collected 535 hits (most of those with the Chicago Cougars who claimed him off the waiver wire). His last year in playing in the big leagues was 1929 and he retired last season after spending 6 years trying to get back to the majors.
First Cuts of the Spring
The Dynamo's made their first cuts of spring training reducing the roster from the original 46 to now 38 players in camp trying to via for 23 spots. Some say that the team would like to cut about 30 of the players in camp and trying to find about 7 others off the scrap heap that might be upgrades.
Players being sent down -
1B Red Johnson
3B Hank Koblenz
2B Homer Ray
CF Ollie Williams
LF Jay Buckingham
SP Jack Stemm
SP Fred Hall
SS Tip Harrison (injured for 2 weeks)
P Marty Devorce
Players returning from the injured list
SP Ben Watkins
None of the names on the cut list were huge surprises as the rookie trio of Johnson, Koblenz and Williams were all here just to get some work in with the big leaguers before going down.
SS Tip Harrison going down is simply because he will not be in camp to compete anymore for a job and the most likely plan was for him and 2B Homer Ray to work on their double play combo at AAA Newark.
Rotation Update
The team continues to rotate pitchers in and out of the starting rotation to get a good look at things. This week's starters in the teams 7 games is below:
Ray Benson 0-1 3.60 5IP (@ Boston)
Ben Watkins 0-0 0.00 spring debut (@ New York) - pitch count 50
Ray McCarthy 0-0 0.00 3.2IP (vs St. Louis)
Jack Wood 0-1 3.12 8.2IP (@ Pittsburgh)
Earle Killebrew 0-0 0.00 4IP (@ Washington)
Ray Lee 0-1 6.00 6IP (vs Philadelphia)
Chuck Calvert 0-1 4.50 8IP (@Chicago)
Next week will be a big week, for C Dave Armstrong as he is fighting to save his job. If the season started today it looks like Jim Kyle and Red Jackson would be splitting the catching duties.
Its also a big week for 1B Bill Moore in his quest to make the Opening Day lineup. Moore is only hitting 200 so far this spring with no extra base hits so he is going to need to really show something this week to have a shot. The team really wants him to win the job, but if he doesn't he will head back to AAA and try to improve his hitting.
SS John McKinley (333 in spring) is trying to wrestle the starting SS job away from Slim Bloom. Meanwhile 2B Paul McCain hasn't gotten too many chances to show that he should be the starting 2B, especially if Moore doesn't win the 1B job.
Next - Week 3 and hopefully the team shows signs of a little life